Most influential rabbi of modern history to be celebrated in Stapleton

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Mendel Popack
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May 8, 2014 @ 4:31 pm
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Rabbi Mendel Popack lifts his son, Yehuda, 2, up to the top of a 6-foot-tall chocolate-covered Menorah they built in their garage last November. Rabbi Mendel and his wife, Estee, founded The Jewish Life Center in Stapleton, which will be offering courses in May on “the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)

The Jewish community will soon commemorate the 20th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad Lubavitch movement from 1951 until his passing in 1994.

To students, sympathizers and admirers around the world, he was known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or simply “the Rebbe.” He is considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. Under the Rebbe’s leadership, the Chabad movement established a worldwide network of educational, social, humanitarian and religious institutions with over 4,000 centers touching tens of millions of lives.

To remember the Rebbe’s passing June 12, 1994, and to honor his legacy, The Jewish Life Center is offering a new six-session course developed by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, entitled, “Paradigm Shift: Transformational Life Teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” The course will be offered in Stapleton over six Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m., beginning May 20. It will explore Rabbi Schneerson’s philosophy and outlook and address his understanding of the human being, his hopes for humanity and how we can apply these insights toward living a more purposeful life.

One of the Rebbe’s most inspiring qualities was his indomitable belief in the potential of each individual and the opportunity to find good in any set of circumstances. An often-told story that appears on Chabad.org illustrates this unique ability of the Rebbe’s.

In 1969, shortly after Shirley Chisholm, an African American woman from Brooklyn, made headlines as the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress, she was assigned to the House Agriculture Committee, where it was assumed by the powers that be that she could have little influence. Interested in helping the urban poor, this left her with an understandable amount of frustration. A meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe changed Congresswoman Chisholm’s attitude. “What a blessing G-d has given you!” the Rebbe told her, urging her to take advantage of her position. “This country has so much surplus food, and there are so many hungry people. You can use this gift that G-d gave you to feed hungry people. Find a creative way to do it.”

While Chisholm did not remain on the committee, she kept the Rebbe’s advice in mind. During the next few years, she worked to expand the national Food Stamp Program and was instrumental in the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. WIC, as the program has come to be known, provides food supplements for millions of pregnant women and children who would otherwise not have had access to proper nutrition. At Chisholm’s retirement party, she credited the Rebbe with inspiring her work in this area. She said, “I owe this to the Rabbi who is an optimist, who taught me that what you may think is a challenge is a gift from G-d.” She has also been quoted as saying, “If poor babies have milk, and poor children have food, it’s because this Rabbi in Crown Heights had vision.”

Another anecdote that illustrates the Rebbe’s unique gift was told by the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. He described an interaction he had with the Rebbe while visiting the United States as a young student at Cambridge University. After Rabbi Sacks asked, and the Rebbe answered, many intellectual and philosophical questions, the Rebbe “did what no one else had done. He did a role reversal, he started asking me questions. How many Jewish students are in Cambridge? How many get involved in Jewish life? What are you doing to bring other people in? … All of a sudden he was challenging me.

“I started a sentence, ‘In the situation in which I find myself …’ – and the Rebbe did something which I think was quite unusual for him, he actually stopped me in mid-sentence. He says, ‘Nobody finds themselves in a situation; you put yourself in a situation. And if you put yourself in that situation, you can put yourself in another situation.

“That moment changed my life.”

Adopting the Rebbe’s perspective is like putting on a new pair of glasses through which everything appears much more vivid. We all want to live up to our inherent design, to make the best of the unique set of skills and circumstances we were given. It all depends on how we choose to view the situation.